Author
Topic: Trump continued (Read 36608 times)

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying: “I agree he is a good guy.”

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

Maybe so. But I think we are heading toward a hearing. It might have to wait until after the mid-terms. If the general population gets pissed off enough it might proceed sooner. People do all sorts of things to save their jobs. The heat on the GOP is increasing.

"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump told the Russian foreign minister and U.S. ambassador on May 10 during an Oval Office meeting, according to a transcript of the meeting read to The Times by a U.S. official. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not dispute the account of the conversation to The Times and, in a statement to NPR, argued that the Russia investigation was harming U.S. foreign policy.